Weekly Inspirations

What is Transformed? Print PDF

After writing about the inner transformation, a couple of questions came to me: what do the images of a black hole, a bottomless pit and caged animals refer to? Do these metaphors refer to one inner state or more?

I wonder if the caged animals do not refer to the shadow side of my personality. Before I began to face my imaginations and compulsions, it often wrecked havoc in my mind, driving me to do or say things in ways and at times that embarrassed me. Are these repressed desires beginning to decrease and has being open to the manifestation of God in the dark side actually begun to clear up the Shadow? The taming of the wild beast within occurs when the Eternal Light shines into my personal darkness enabling me to make friends with this terror within.

I have also wondered if the inner conflict that generates such deep fear does not arise from the ego's contradiction of the self. Without question I have suffered from an ill-formed ego. Perhaps in my earliest years I absorbed my mother's images and expectations of me that lacked a footing in reality. In times of stress or at odd moments when the shock of not being shattered my covering, it also unleashed the disorienting fear that I experienced both as a child and as an adult.

Transformation Print PDF

I have noted an amazing transformation taking place inside me. I cannot adequately capture it with words, but a few similes point toward my experience. What I am trying to describe is the conquest of the angst of finitude, a struggle that has been near me for many years.

In years past this 'black hole' of the soul has spewed anxious fears into my consciousness with such force I have shivered like a homeless child standing naked on a street corner in freezing temperatures. Something is happening to this hole in my soul. It is like my black hole is being filled up and can no longer gape at me like a sinister spirit. Sometimes i'm not certain whether the pit is being filled or its darkness is being made luminous and rendered mysteriously unthreatening.

At times the dark bottomless pit has seemed covered with a floor, which kept one from being drawn into it and falling forever. I have felt in constant danger because the protective covering had rotted and just one false step would be disastrous. If this is the right analogy, the covering has been repaired.

On other occasions this inner state has seemed like a cage of vicious, wild animals, at once all growling and squawking and chewing at the wire cage. At any moment I feared that they would get loose and consume me. Now all these threatening creatures seem to have been tamed. They are all lying down at rest.

For some reason these fearful feelings from the shadow land of the soul have appeared, but they have had no power to disrupt the sense of peace and wholeness that has begun to pervade my inner being. The result has been no more than a dud firecracker that barely made a sound when it exploded or a sparkler that fizzled. This experience that I am trying to describe suggests an inner transformation that is not under my control, but nevertheless real, very real.

Sleeping Awareness Print PDF

From time to time I have wondered if my contemplation did not conclude with my sitting for an hour in sleep. I have good reason to wonder about such when I recall evening sessions begun at 11: 00p. m. and ending at 1: 30 a. m. , when I gently awaken and move from my chair to my bed. But falling asleep does not always occur, yet there is something in the contemplative state akin to sleep.

How could there not be a kinship of contemplation and sleep when contemplation occurs in the 'dark night'? Does not the image of the 'dark night, ' in part at least, derive from sleep? The teachers of this way speak of putting the senses to sleep and putting thoughts from our minds. This suggests to me that the rational mind and the bodily emotions are sent to bed. The dismissal of the human faculties leads to the way of 'unknowing, ' which borders on sleep.

What is left in the contemplative? Awareness capable of attentiveness! In contemplation all other human faculties sleep while awareness remains awake.

One morning, this alertness became clear to me. My settling in had been a struggle. Before I began to relax, a huge question popped up in my mind, like an unwelcome pop-up on my computer. Even writing answers did not disconnect me from the question; there was no delete button or mouse to X out the distraction. As the issue subsided, I fought with other images and dreamlike narratives. Finally, like two kittens exhausted from play, both of these seemed weary from the struggle and they wandered over and lay quietly in the corner, and finally disappeared.

It seemed that only awareness remained and I became focused. I gazed at the invisible for a time. After an hour I felt finished. In the moment that followed, 'sleeping awareness' became a synonym for contemplation.

The Spirit Searches All Print PDF

In my wondering about the validity of waiting in silence before God, this statement came to me: "For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God." (I Cor. 2: 10) It is not my spirit that searches out the depths of God but the Holy Spirit, and it is this same Spirit that seeks my depths. The Spirit knows both my depths and God's depths.

Paul wrote about the wisdom of God, which earthly rulers did not perceive, and this very wisdom we recognize because it is given to us through the Spirit that searches the depths. The manner in which Paul speaks of wisdom seems to be equivalent to his speech about mystery, the mystery of God. This identification of mystery with wisdom suggests that the Spirit reveals the mystery of God. I am awed that the Spirit that continually searches me is at the same time revealing the mystery of God.

Doubtless the Spirit selects multiple ways to give us glimpses of the divine mystery; one way is through the contemplation of God. When I enter into the realm of the sacred, it is the Spirit that invites me. As my host, the Spirit shows me what I have not thought, felt or even imagined. Miraculously and inexplicably, the One who knows my depths as well as the depths of God brings me into a relationship beyond my understanding. Through the agency of the Spirit, I am ushered into a communion with God that I cannot achieve; nevertheless it is freely given.

This communion occurs in the silent depth of the soul beyond the reach of my awareness. It often seems that I am asleep under the anesthetic of inner silence while the Spirit operates with precision. Generally, I cannot name the Spirit's action and I cannot see immediate changes, but I live confidently that a transformation of consciousness is occurring.

Pre-Contemplation Print PDF

Before I even thought of the silence of contemplation, my reading for the day stopped me cold. The writer said ". . . contemplation is out of the question for any one who does not try to cultivate compassion for other men." I understood this undeniable truth! Christ has formed of all humans his Body on earth (not merely the baptized, but all) and division, exclusion and elitism crucify him afresh by dismembering his Body. The image of fracturing his body evokes memories of a lifetime of withdrawing.

As a child I was taught that our family was different from the neighbors. Our yard was kept better and our family made better choices about with whom we associated and how we managed our money. This distinction between families marked the beginning of my awareness of being different from others.

This distinction grew until my spiritual conversion. I realize today that I was converted away from my sins, rather than to Jesus Christ. I tended then to build a false ego defined by what I did not do – how this made me different from other Christians. I imagine that fear widened this chasm between me and others, a fear that I would fall back into my past practices.

In the early days of this new life in Christ's Body, I heard my mentors comparing themselves (and me by implication) with other Christians who lacked an adequate view of holy living, of which, of course, we were good examples. This posture put me on the right side of how to be a true Christian and placed others on the left. In my early theological training, the emphasis continued to fall on the difference between "us"and "others" and not on the community of the forgiven.

Over the years this way of viewing myself in the Body of Christ has wielded a powerful, unconscious influence on my perceptions of and reactions to other people. Naturally, this pharisaical way of seeing myself affected both the way I saw both people and situations. After all these years, I must be converted to Christ and his unconditional love. A new choice is not enough; a resolve will not work; only Christ, Christ alone can make me a new creation. I look to him.

I seek the transformation of this false self into a self that loves everyone in the Body of Christ as my brother and sister. My only hope is in the mercy of the Lord that endures forever.

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